Officer Retention

[Norfolk]

Thank-you for your patience with me, CR6, and again I am sorry for my thoughtless and careless words; no insult was intended to the Officer Corps of the U.S. Army, but having reflected on my previous statements, it is clear that I went too far. I beg the pardon of all whom I have offended.

The GAO statement that you have provided, CR6, is good enough for me.
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As I am reposting the (unoffensive) part of a previous post, as I am hoping that the offensive post will be deleted shortly:

jcustis' post is excellent, even outstanding - and why indeed don't the Armed Forces (throughout the English-speaking world) commission more from the ranks? As Patton himself said, it takes 10 years for an officer to begin earning his pay. There is a good case to be made for taking talented and experienced sergeants and offering them commissions. And in addition to their mastery of their craft, there is, as jcustis said, the likelihood that these guys are in for the long haul. And that's because they are more likely to view the military as a calling, a vocation, or a profession, rather than as a career - careers can change, but a calling is rather more resilient.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Cavguy
You're assuming those getting out are the bottom 10%. I'd say there's an even distribution across - some of the best LT's (now CPTs) in my BN bailed out, a few of the ok, and some of the bad.

Categorizing all those who leave as the bottom 10% seriously misreads the situation. Our bigger worry is only the bottom 10% stay . Promoting from the ranks is an option.

Also to Ken's earlier - we're having heavy attrition in the E-5/E-6 arena as well, but we're throwing massive re-up money at them, which is holding them in. Shoot, we pay $40k now to first term enlistees.

During the 1990's, the Canadian Armed Forces, and especially the "Army", suffered the almost wholesale loss of its best and most experienced officers and NCOs - not to mention ordinary soldiers. This was partly due to "Peace Dividend" reductions, partly due to massive over-committment to overseas "Peacekeeping" missions that virtually burned the Army out, and partly due to the Department of National Defences policies of conducting "purges" (that was indeed the actual word used in a few statements by DND officials) of those elements within the military who most felt that it was a calling, not just a career - because those elements were most definitely not PC.

By 1995, there was not a single officer left who had experience manoeuvring a Brigade, let alone a Division, and shortly afterwards even the experience of Battalion manoeuvre was something that only a few of the older senior officers could claim - and none of the younger field-grades. I read some CF College papers these days, some of them calling for capabilities that we still had back in the early 90's, and these guys are writing as if the CF never had them in the first place. The younger Captains and Majors, who were not in and never new the "old" Army prior to the mid-1990's, have little idea of what there was before their time, because most of those who knew are long gone. Standards throughout the Army, and especially the Infantry Corps, suffered a precipitous decline, right from the individual-level on up to Company-level, which formed the upper-limit of training in the Army. The Armed Forces as a whole suffered a loss of public esteem from which they have never fully recovered, and recruiting standards have been lowered to the point where as long as you are not disabled, physically or mentally, and possess Canadian citizenship, you pretty much are guaranteed acceptance - and you need no personal references either.

And this goes to Cavguy's point. It isn't just, or even mostly, those that the U.S. Army can best do without who are leaving; [Note: the following part is edited] quite a few of those who are leaving are those who are better (and in some cases, best) suited to leading the Army now and into the future. At present, there is a dearth, becoming serious now, of officers who have actual experience manoeuvring Brigades and Divisions, and even Battalions. Once Major-Unit and Formation-level Combined Arms practical know-how is lost or seriously degraded, it's hard to get it back. The Canadians, for example, for the last few years have been engagaed in the arduous task of trying to relearn and remaster Combined-Arms at Battalion-level, with some attempts at Brigade-level; Division-level is not going to happen, but needs to.

The U.S. Army, by a combination of operational over-committment (unavoidable of course) to Iraq and Afghanistan, and the concomittant loss of the [Note: Edited] a significant part of its younger, better officers (amongst others), is at increasingly serious risk of a talent gap not only at subaltern-level, but most especialy at field-grade and flag officer level - where they can do the most good if they were to make it that far.

Edit Note: This part was just so people don't wonder what happened to an older post.